Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

The Catapault Malfunctions

by digby

CNN just reported that the ABC event movie, “The Path To 9/11” had 13 million viewers compared with CBS’s 10 million for the third repeat of it’s 9/11 documentary and football won the time slot with a strapping 20 million viewers.

When they look at the numbers closely, I think they will show an ABC audience that shrank tremendously within the first 15 minutes. This is not because it was politically sensitive but because it is one of the most tedious, incomprehensible pieces of garbage they’ve ever broadcast. A bunch of advertisers must be breathing a sigh of relief this morning that they hadn’t been talked into blowing any money on it.

It wasn’t just that it was a pathetic and obvious attempt to ape real talent like Oliver Stone, Steven Soderberg and Stephen Ghagan, or that the characters were robotic cliches whose turgid dialog actually made me laugh out loud several times. (There is a particularly hilarious scene in which Amy Madigan stomps around like a weepy linebacker, practically rending her garments before a conference table full of bedwetting bureaucrats, proclaiming “we had him and we let him go!”) It’s that it was, despite all the hoopla, so slow and plodding that even someone like me who had a great interest in watching every frame to find details I could use, simply could not sustain my interest after the first hour. I forced myself, but it wasn’t easy. Somehow, I doubt that middle America was more riveted than I was.

Here in LA on the ABC 11 o’clock news they held a sort of focus group to watch the film and comment on it. (They all looked a little shell shocked — and I doubt it was because the movie was so powerful.) I found it quite interesting that more than half of them saw it as a rightwing attempt to re-write history and found it “dangerous” and “false.” The rightwingers present were forced to say things like “I find it amazing that half this country refuses to accept we are at war.” From seeing that exchange, I’m hopeful that this movie failed to convince anyone who isn’t already dogpaddling around in the wingnut kool-aid. If that focus group is any indication, most of those who managed to make it through the whole thing without being rendered comatose could see that it was unbalanced.

The problem with wingnuts in popular culture is that they can’t seem to attract real creative talent. I think creativity rarely fits comfortably with authoritarianism, so that isn’t surprising. They are going to have to find a better team than Nowrasteh and Cunningham if they hope to indoctrinate the public with wingnut propaganda through film and television. Perhaps they should stick to screaming Hiteresque ranting on talk radio. That they know how to do.

Update: the numbers are actually worse than CNN reported

.

Leadership

by digby

Youtube

.

The Onslaught

by digby

From Andrew Sullivan

Next week, I’m informed via troubled White House sources, will see the full unveiling of Karl Rove’s fall election strategy. He’s intending to line up 9/11 families to accuse McCain, Warner and Graham of delaying justice for the perpetrators of that atrocity, because they want to uphold the ancient judicial traditions of the U.S. military and abide by the Constitution. He will use the families as an argument for legalizing torture, setting up kangaroo courts for military prisoners, and giving war crime impunity for his own aides and cronies. This is his “Hail Mary” move for November; it’s brutally exploitative of 9/11; it’s pure partisanship; and it’s designed to enable an untrammeled executive. Decent Republicans, Independents and Democrats must do all they can to expose and resist this latest descent into political thuggery. If you need proof that this administration’s first priority is not a humane and effective counter-terror strategy, but a brutal, exploitative path to retaining power at any price, you just got it.

My prediction: McCain, Graham and Warner sputter a little bit and then do the big el- foldo. The institutionalization of the American police state will proceed apace until Republicans are removed from power — and probably beyond. This is the kind of genie that fights going back in the bottle every step of the way.

.

Who Lost Osama Part VII

by digby

As we gird our loins for “Fantasia Redux” tonight in which the public will be throroughly brainwashed into believing that Clinton outright refused to kill bin Laden because he was too busy schtupping interns and didn’t give a damn about terrorism, it becomes more and more obvious that even after 9/11, the Bush administration didn’t take terrorism seriously.

The most galling thing about this entire episode is that aside from the ridiculous rightwing slant toward Clinton, which isn’t surprising, the wingnuts have been going on and on about how the problem was “the wall” (which they also misrepresent) and that the bureaucratic Clinton administration wouldn’t allow the various agencies to communicate. Fine. If that was a problem, everyone can agree that, in accordance with the law and the consitution, that should be fixed.

But guess what:

Bureaucratic battles slowed down the hunt for bin Laden for the first two or three years, according to officials in several agencies, with both the Pentagon and the CIA accusing each other of withholding information. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s sense of territoriality has become legendary, according to these officials.

In early November 2002, for example, a CIA drone armed with a Hellfire missile killed a top al-Qaeda leader traveling through the Yemeni desert. About a week later, Rumsfeld expressed anger that it was the CIA, not the Defense Department, that had carried out the successful strike.

“How did they get the intel?” he demanded of the intelligence and other military personnel in a high-level meeting, recalled one person knowledgeable about the meeting.

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, then director of the National Security Agency and technically part of the Defense Department, said he had given it to them.

“Why aren’t you giving it to us?” Rumsfeld wanted to know.

Hayden, according to this source, told Rumsfeld that the information-sharing mechanism with the CIA was working well. Rumsfeld said it would have to stop.

A CIA spokesman said Hayden, now the CIA director, does not recall this conversation. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said, “The notion that the department would do anything that would jeopardize the success of an operation to kill or capture bin Laden is ridiculous.” The NSA continues to share intelligence with the CIA and the Defense Department.

[…]

Today, however, no one person is in charge of the overall hunt for bin Laden with the authority to direct covert CIA operations to collect intelligence and to dispatch JSOC units. Some counterterrorism officials find this absurd. “There’s nobody in the United States government whose job it is to find Osama bin Laden!” one frustrated counterterrorism official shouted. “Nobody!”

But then, it’s not surprising, is it?

I certainly hope that after this “Path To Propaganda” debacle somebody decides that the real story of the Bush administration should be made. It will have to be a farce, of course. Too bad Jerry Lewis is too old to play George W. Bush. Maybe Gilbert Godfried is available.

.

Swamp Mouse

by digby

I was just listening to Johnny Wendell here on KTLK interviewing Ray Richmond of The Hollywood Reporter who reports that there have been rumors around town ever since Disney refused to distribute “Fahrenheit 9/11” that Disney has a corrupt relationship with Jeb Bush in Florida. I don’t know if it’s true, but I do know that Disney has made some very questionable corporate decisions in recent years when it comes to political material.

Matt Stoller reports that Disney also seems to be employing well known Republican flacks in high level corporate positions. It gives new meaning to the word synergy.

.

Even The Cons Hate It

by tristero

You know you’ve got a Condition Red public relations debacle on your hands when everyone from Bill Clinton to John Podhoretz agrees you suck. What Christy sez.

I assume someone will collect and publish the list of commercials for show 2 – show 1 being broadcast without ads. I for one will take that list very seriously. Any sponsor whose products I can avoid, I will, and those that can’t will hear from me.

As for ABC, you couldn’t pay me to watch their shows. And there are plenty of really exciting places to take my kid for vacation, none of which have anything to do with copyright-protected rats… sorry, I meant mice.

Purity Purge

by digby

Last month we all read endless stories about how the leftist blogofascists are trying to purge the Democratic party of its moderates. We read that we not only didn’t have any decency, we were naive and self-defeating, just like our hippy heroes, the McGovernites. The national media closely covered our wild antics so that everyone in politics would see how untrustworthy we were and properly shun us.

Now, in a different race, we see this different angle on similar circumstances:

With a barrage of television advertisements and the mobilization of its get-out-the-vote machine, the national Republican Party has lined up in Rhode Island to beat back a conservative primary challenge to the most liberal Republican in the Senate, Lincoln Chafee. The outcome on Tuesday could help determine whether Democrats have a shot at taking back the Senate.

In an extraordinary pre-emptive announcement, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has said it will concede Rhode Island to the Democrats should Stephen Laffey, the mayor of Cranston, defeat Mr. Chafee in the primary. Citing poll data, Republican leaders said they saw no way someone as conservative as Mr. Laffey could win in a state as Democratic as this; as it is, they are increasingly worried about Mr. Chafee’s hopes in a general election.

[…]

In many ways, what is happening in Rhode Island is a mirror of what happened in neighboring Connecticut last month: an ideological challenge from the wings to an established senator who is seen as out of step with his party. In that case, a Democrat, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, lost a primary to Ned Lamont, who attacked Mr. Lieberman for his support of the war in Iraq and his dalliances with the White House.

The difference is that there was no serious Republican challenger in the Connecticut race, so the Democratic Party invested relatively minimal resources in Mr. Lieberman.

Uhm no. Actually, the difference between Connecticut and Rhode island is that the primary challenge in Connecticut was consciously waged because it was in a state with a safe seat. From the beginning, the cognoscenti have failed to understand the difference between that pragmatic political decision and a quixotic, suicidal run from the right by Club for Growth in Rhode Island that might cost the Republican party their majority. They still don’t. From the beginning they have portrayed the Lamont challenge as a stupid, dangerous purge by leftwing wierdos while Stephen Moore’s vicious Rhode Island jihad is treated as perfectly respectable.

This is what happens when people don’t question assumptions they made 30 years ago. For the last time — it isn’t 1968 and it isn’t 1972. It isn’t even 1992. It’s 2006 and the radicals today wear nice suits and drive nice cars and they are crazy, rightwing motherfuckers who don’t give a damn if they drive the Republican party — and America — right over a cliff. You’d think it would be obvious by now that the grown-ups are definitely not in charge.

.

Naht Guh Happen

by digby

Josh Marshall has an interesting post up at TPM cafe in which an extremely confident (one might say delusional) President Bush talks about how he is virtually certain the Republicans will maintain the congress (and will phase out SS in 2007.) It is creepy, I admit.

But if you’d like to see him get really testy and aggressive at the suggestion that the GOP might lose this fall, watch this footage of him and Charles Gibson. (Go to the menu on the right and click on “President Bush on his campaign to reassure Americans about the War on Terror.”)

“….And I’m gonna say to you, it’s not gonna happen… you think you’re not talking about a hypothetical but you are!”

Watch the whole thing as he has his hissy fit and then slouches all over the back seat of the limo until by the time the tape is finished he looks like some sort of Roman Emperor waiting for Gibson to peel him a grape. Very creepy.

Oh and here’s a neat little excerpt from another segment for you all to chew over. I honestly don’t even know where to start. Gibson tries, but it’s like talking to a three year old:

Gibson: But the point that I make and that many of the critics make is that Iraq wasn’t a part of the war on terror until we went in there.

Bush: I think we … (overlap) Gibson: Now because of Iraq, they’re being produced, because (crosstalk)

Bush: I … I … listen, I understand it’s dangerous and troublesome, but I think it’s very important for the American people to ask, “Why, why is it that Osama bin Laden wants to drive us out of Iraq before this democracy can sustain itself?” One reason is they want a launching pad, another launching pad, a safe haven similar to Afghanistan. And the other reason is because Osama bin Laden recognizes that this is an ideological struggle, and the way to defeat an ideology of hate is with an ideology of hope, and that’s liberty and democracy.

sigh…

Gibson: A broad question: You have, a number of times in going off to give speeches like you’re going to give today, used the line that we are not going to rest until there is victory in this war on terror.

Bush: Right.

Gibson: And you always get applause when you say it. I don’t know what victory is. Is it getting rid of every jihadist who would do us economic and, and, and indeed actual harm?

Bush: … There will be a series of victories in order to achieve victory in this ideological struggle. The first series of victories come when we dismantle al Qaeda and we’re in the process of doing that. Now, the short term strategy is to bring those to justice who would do us harm. The longer term victories come when democracy, Iraqi style democracy, Lebanese style democracy, a Palestinian democracy, exist, take root and are capable of helping kind of … defeat the … systems of government that created resentment and hopelessness which enables people to create suiciders, and that is the long term struggle.

Short-term victory will be achieved by defeating people on the battlefield. Using our intelligence, and to find people before they hurt us. Long-term victories will be achieved, uh, when, the ideology of hate is overcome by the ideology of hope. And that’s why I make the case that this is akin to the ideological struggles of the past. And it’s going to take a while. And it’s very important for, … the free world to understand the stakes, and it became evident to me, evident to me — more evident to me — when Shia extremists attacked democracy of Israel at the same time that Sunni extremists are attacking the democracy of Iraq.

Billmon?

.

King Hack

by digby

There are many lessons to be learned from this “PT9/11” controversy. I’m sure we will all be discussing them at some length in the days to come.

But if there is one thing I think we can all take away from this right now, it’s that Hugh Hewitt is the most unctuous, intellectually craven, partisan shill on the current political scene. Nobody in this entire episode has behaved with less integrity, less dignity or less probity.

Case in point, regarding the comparisons between the right’s demands regarding the Reagan biopic and the left’s objections to “PT9/11:”

I am looking forward to Gabler’s defense of the ABC film, but also to the reasoned differentiation between CBS’s explanation and any explanation that ABC can or would ever be able to offer about changes to or cancelation of “The Path to 9/11.”

First, hundreds of people have screened :The Path to 9/11,” including me and many other critics and/or hosts of large audience shows. (Complaints from tiny lefty bloggers that I received a screener and others didn’t ignore the fact that I requested it weeks ago and that I have an audience in the millions, not the tens.) To my knowledge not one professional critic has yet suggested the film is other than a powerful narrative of the era, especially chilling in its portrait of the enemy, or particularly damning of the Clinton-era fecklessness regading terror. It isn’t like we don’t know that Monica was a distraction and Madeleine Albright a less-than-brilliant Secretary of State (how about that late lurch towards North Korea?) John O’Neill was in fact fired; there were warnings that were ignored about the African embassy bombings, and no response followed the Cole attack and the American ambassador to Yemen was an obstruction to that investigation, Massoud was assasinated by al Qaeda. These are not debatable subjects. They are facts.

Second, the Reagan biopic served no purpose and memorialized no important event in American history. “The Path to 9/11” does both. The attempt to bury the latter is the attempt to erect an official history on one of the most devastating days in our nation’s history. Those demanding its ruin are demanding censorship of the very worst sort.

Finally and most importantly, just because people complain that a film is inaccurate doesn’t make it so. The Reagan pic was by CBS’s own account a deeply flawed bit of anti-Reagan advocacy.

This is not the case about “The Path to 9/11,” which is a powerful and hugely researched project, though it is not a documentary and does not claim to be. There is no reasonable case to be made that the film distorts history or slanders public figures in any significant way.

There’s a whole week’s worth of drivel like that and worse.

I suppose this does prove the Dean of Columbia’s Journalism School’s contention that Hewitt is no mere GOP mouthpiece. I’ll repeat what I wrote about this earlier:

All those “smart, determined conservatives” who are “starting new organizations and making more converts” [as Lehman termed Hewitt and others of his ilk]are funded by a network of wealthy benefactors. They are not required to make money (I guess they are considered the loss leaders of the oligarchy) and their function is to simultaneously write the word and spread it. They’ve been fairly successful recently at making a market for their work, but it’s still not big enough to sustain it. With the exception of actual political campaigns (at which point they actively coordinate with whichever strategic electoral wizard they’ve anointed), after 30 years of listening only to each other there is no need to explicitly inform anyone of the company line. They know it without having to be told.

I suppose you could call that “journalism.” I call it “propaganda” and I’m stunned that Nicholas Lemann, of all people, hasn’t figured out how this thing works by now. But when you hear some of Hewitt’s interviews with DC journalists it’s clear they haven’t figured it out either.

Hewitt stands apart, actually, as being even more craven and unprincipled than the rest. In that way he serves an important purpose for the right. His mere presence in the discourse serves to make people like John Podhoretz and Jonah Goldberg seem like paragons of rectitude by comparison.

People of the center or left who continue to help Hewitt pretend to be a credible person by appearing on his show can no longer be considered credible themselves. By encouraging Hewitt’s blatant intellectual corruption they are irrevocably tainted by that intellectual corruption themselves.

.

Accountability

by digby

Fifty-seven percent of the respondents said they think it would be good for the country “if the Democrats in Congress were able to conduct official investigations into what the Bush administration has done in the past six years.”

.